Four passengers on ship off South America have died: cruise line

Photo: BRUCE STOTESBURY, TIMES COLONIST

Four people have died on a cruise ship on which more than 1,800 passengers and crew are stranded, including several people from Vancouver Island.

“We received very sad news just now,” Metchosin’s David Kirkham wrote from the MS Zaandam on Friday morning. “Four guests have died, one overnight, two yesterday and one the day before. This has hit us very hard.”

Cruise line Holland America confirmed that four older passengers had died.

David and wife Norma Kirkham, a couple from Sooke and some passengers from Nanaimo are among close to 250 Canadians on the ship, which has been refused entry by South American ports worried about the pandemic.

The Zaandam, which left Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 7 for a cruise around the southern tip of the continent, hasn’t been allowed to dock since March 14.

On Friday morning, the ship was positioned off of Panama, where Holland America said it was negotiating with local authorities for permission to transit the Panama Canal. The goal is to dock at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday.

The cruise line said it would begin transferring healthy passengers to a sister vessel, the MS Rotterdam, today. “Only those who have not been ill will be moved, and health screenings will be conducted before transferring,” it said in a statement.

Priority will go to those over age 70 and to those in inside cabins.

The Kirkhams, who are in their 60s, have a room with an outside view.

All passengers on the Zaandam have been confined to their staterooms since Sunday, when people began reporting sick.

In total, Holland America, said 53 guests (four per cent of the total) and 85 crew (14 per cent) have reported flu-like symptoms. Some testing for COVID-19 was done Thursday, with two cases coming back positive.

“We continue to be healthy, but as I said, this has hit us hard,” Kirkham wrote.